1 Month

For some reason, I remember this moment like it was yesterday:

One evening, Elijah & I were all of 17 & 18 years old, driving down Memorial in Murfreesboro. He was driving and I was in the passenger seat of his F150. We weren’t even dating yet, just starting the phase of hanging out as often as we could. I’m not even sure where we were driving from, I just remember talking about Murfreesboro. We talked about how people our age couldn’t wait to leave & how they said there wasn’t much to do, but we actually disagreed. We talked about how much we loved the fact that you can’t even go to the grocery store without seeing someone you know, and that we loved how laid back Murfreesboro was-never having a lot of pressure to “keep up with the Jones’.” As we kept listing off the things we loved about the Boro, he looked at me & said “I really like Murfreesboro.” I looked back at him and repeated, “I really like Murfreesboro, too.”

In that moment, as silly as it sounds, I remember having a vision of a life with him flash before my eyes. I let it flash for about 10 seconds before I quickly dismissed it as absolute craziness. However, I’ll never forget that 10 seconds…

Funny thing is, today I’m here (still in Murfreesboro) writing this blog post, having been married to Elijah Montgomery for one whole month, tomorrow.

When Elijah moved into the house, I left a letter board sign by his desk. It says, “May 22, hurry up please.” Every time we worked at the house this past year, that little sign made us smile…& made us all the more eager for that day to come.

Now, here we are, one month after May 22. I still haven’t taken the letters off our sign.

Sitting on the other side of all the praying, dreaming, and anticipating still all feels a little surreal. May 22 truly was a day that we wish we could relive a hundred times. Our honeymoon was all we had dreamed and talked about, and living in our little house feels as much like home as we had imagined.

Though I have SO much to say about the details of the wedding day & the memories from the honeymoon (I’ll journal & share more pictures about those soon!), I wanted to journal today so I wouldn’t forget the little things about this first month.

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Like the first day we came home. The Monday we flew home from our honeymoon, we felt a little shower of love from our families as soon as we pulled into the driveway. They left us a freshly mowed yard, a sweet sign on the front porch, and fresh flowers inside. Elijah & I swung through the Chick-fil-a drive through for lunch & brought it home to eat outside together for the first time as a married couple. After lunch, we went inside to open the gifts given to us at the wedding, and we opened one of our most cherished gifts; this precious coloring sheet colored by Elijah’s little cousin. (One of the coloring sheets from the kid’s table at the wedding!)

The next day, real-life kicked into full swing. I started my internship for school, and Elijah got back to work for his business Fernway Home Projects. That night, we enjoyed a cookout with our “Newly-married Small Group” for the first time as “Newly-weds!”

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The days rolled on from there…each day holding it’s own special memory. As little as they may seem, I want to hold on to each of them.

Like the way he’s raved about each of the dinners I make, even when it’s just pizza & cheetos.

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Or my first trip to the grocery store where I spent over an hour finding all the food on our grocery list & running into sweet ladies from church who are grocery store veterans & helped me, the newly-wed, find certain things.

Or the first time our house filled with the smell of sausage and biscuits, reminding me of my grandparents house & feeling like our house grew even homier.

I don’t want to forget the day our living room sectional arrived, & how we slept on it that night out of excitement.

Or how it feels to wake up & hug him in the middle of the night, just cause I can.

I don’t want to forget the night we stayed up too late hanging pictures and rearranging furniture in the living room,

Or when Elijah came home the next day with his Canvasback duck mount to hang in the house & I actually loved it.

I don’t wanna forget dinners on the front porch, surprise visits from siblings, the times he brought home flowers, or playing corn hole in the front yard with friends.

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Or even the night we spent what felt like hours of hand-washing a week’s worth of dirty dishes after our dishwasher broke, & the true thankfulness we gained towards installing a new dishwasher later that week.

I don’t want to forget how much we have loved working on our house together; hanging lights in the side yard together, and creating our pea gravel patio in the backyard.

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Even when our schedule seems to constantly be filling, life somehow has slowed down, knowing we will come home to each other at the end of each day. It’s truly been my favorite phase of life yet, and being a wife has been my favorite role.

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One month down, a million to go.

Daisy Sue Montgomery